Each of the astronauts who were coming back to Earth was to get a regular medical checkup.
The fourth long-duration astronaut team that SpaceX sent to the International Space Station (ISS) splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida on Friday after nearly six months of research there.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule called Freedom, which was carrying three American NASA astronauts and an Italian from the European Space Agency, parachuted into the sea after a five-hour flight home from the ISS.
At about 4:55 p.m. EDT (20:55 GMT), when the sky was clear, the landing was live-streamed by NASA and SpaceX.
On April 27, Freedom began its time in space. The crew was made up of the 49-year-old NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, the 34-year-old Jessica Watkins, the 47-year-old Bob Hines, and the 45-year-old Samantha Cristoforetti, who was in charge of their ISS mission. Watkins was the first African-American woman to join an ISS mission that would last for a long time.
Related: As part of the next crew for the space station, a Russian cosmonaut will ride with SpaceX.
In less than an hour, recovery teams lifted the burned-up Crew Dragon onto a vessel for retrieval. They then opened the capsule’s side hatch and helped the four astronauts out one by one for their first breath of fresh air in more than 24 weeks.
Even though they were still wearing their white-and-black spacesuits with helmets, the four crew members were helped onto special gurneys as they waved and gave thumbs up for the cameras.
On the ship’s deck was the ship’s namesake, NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, who had been in space before.
Before being flown back to Florida by helicopter, each of the returning astronauts was to get a regular medical checkup on the ship.
Scorching Re-Entry, Then Parachutes
After a fiery re-entry plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, the capsule came back to Earth. Temperatures outside the capsule rose to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit because of frictional heat (1,930 degrees Celsius).
In the last part of its descent, two sets of parachutes opened up above the capsule. This slowed its fall to about 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) before it hit the water off Jacksonville, Florida.
NASA says that during their time on the space station, the crew went around Earth 2,720 times, or about once every 90 minutes. This added up to about 72 million miles (116 million km) in space.
The team was called “Crew-4,” and it was the fourth full-fledged, long-term group of astronauts sent to the International Space Station by SpaceX since May 2020, when the private rocket company started by Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O) CEO Elton Musk started flying NASA employees.
As with most ISS crews, their main job was to do science-related things like experiments and technology shows.
Some of the highlights were research on how microgravity causes changes in human cells that are similar to those that happen with age, and keeping track of how changes in diet in orbit affect immune function, GI health, and nutrition indicators.
They also took part in studies of how fire and fuel behave in weightlessness and how plants can be grown without soil using liquid and air-based growth materials.
Crew-5, which replaced them, had only been on the station for a week when they left. Crew-5 was made up of a Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese astronaut, and two NASA crewmates, one of whom was the first Native American woman to go into space.
Related: NASA and SpaceX are examining ways to increase the Hubble telescope’s orbit.
Crew-5 is still on the ISS with two other Russians and an American who got there in September on a Soyuz flight. Serge Prokofiev, one of these cosmonauts, took over the ISS from Cristoforetti before Crew-4 left.
The International Space Station (ISS), which is the size of a U.S. football field, has been occupied continuously since 2000. It is run by a partnership led by the U.S. and Russia that also includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries.
